Regrets Only (40 page)

“Tuesday
would be perfect,” Dylan said. “And, yes, it is a special occasion. I know it
may sound sudden, but I’m planning to propose to your daughter and I’d like Mr.
Hamilton’s permission first.”

Both
women gasped in the same way at the same time, one on the phone and one on the
balcony in front of him. Suzanne’s eyes were wide with shock. He covered the receiver
with his hand and said with a grin, “Don’t worry, you can always say ‘no.’”

She
flashed him a defiant but playful look that he had seen several times before,
and which he knew he’d be seeing frequently for the rest of his life. He stuck
his tongue out at her in response, and she rolled her eyes again. But he saw
her move incrementally toward him, too.
That
was a good sign.

Dylan
knew that Suzanne worried about the logistics of their relationship, and
sometimes, he did, too. But he had tested his own ability to be loyal to her
and passed. Now she had chosen to be here with him when every man before him
had gotten the boot. With the stubborn tenacity he’d had his whole life, and
the fiery spirit of the woman in front of him, he knew they could make
anything
work. She might not want to get married, and that was fine but he’d be
damned
if she could keep him from asking.

Mrs.
Hamilton was fretting and sputtering on the other end of the phone, whether in
dismay or excitement, he didn’t know. Or care. At least right now. The wind was
making it both colder and harder to hear through the phone. “Yes, ma’am. We’ll
meet you at the country club at seven on Tuesday. I’m sure Suzanne can tell me
how to get there. And, Mrs. Hamilton, if I could just ask one additional
favor?”

Beyond
the wind, he could hear the sputtering had slowed and he heard something that
might have been a high-pitched assent. “If you could just write this down for
me, please? Okay, good. Could you please call the CityRock Hotel—yes, ma’am, it
is very nice—and ask for Daniela, the concierge? Yes ma’am… D-A-N-I-E-L-A.
Could you tell her that Rhett Butler asked you to call? That’s me; I used that
name for privacy, and then she’ll know it’s really me who asked you. Yes,
ma’am, my job is silly sometimes, isn’t it? Anyway, if you could ask Daniela to
send a bellman up to the penthouse, please? Have him to come right in.”

“What’s
going on?” Suzanne asked, her playful look turning to a worried frown. He
tousled her hair and pulled her close to him, protecting her from the wind and
her worry. He wanted to protect her from everything.

“Yes,
ma’am,” he went on, almost yelling now so that Suzanne’s mom could hear him.
“Tell her we are locked outside on the balcony and need to be let inside. And
if you don’t mind hurrying, Mrs. Hamilton. It’s getting a bit windy out here.”

He
chuckled as Suzanne pulled free from his grasp and tested the door behind him herself.
When it wouldn’t open, her eyes grew wide and she smacked his bare chest
lightly with the back of her hand. “Ouch!” he said, and shrugged helplessly at
her. “No, ma’am, we sure won’t panic. It’s a nice day out. But if you could ask
them to hurry, I’d be grateful.”

He
said goodbye and snapped the phone shut again, pulling Suzanne into his arms
again, for closeness and for warmth. “Well, this is embarrassing,” she said to
his chest. “The bellman will probably snap a picture with his phone and sell it
to the tabloids for a million dollars.”

“More
like thirty-thousand, probably,” Dylan corrected. “But at least
you
look
great. I’m the one who’s in my underwear.”

“I
guess public humiliation really is our thing, isn’t it?”

“I’m
afraid so,” he said.

“Dylan?”
she asked.

“Mmm…”
he breathed into her hair.
God, he even loved the smell of her hair
.

“If
we’re going to stay together, which it sounds like you’re planning with or
without
my
permission,” she pinched him lightly beneath the ribs for
emphasis on this point, “let’s get a
new
thing.”

He
laughed and kissed her forehead. “Anything for you, Scarlett.”

With
a joy so bone-deep it almost hurt to feel it, Dylan Burke realized that he
meant those words, understood them, for the first time in his life. The woman
in his arms wasn’t perfect, he knew, and what he wanted to build with her
wasn’t anything close to what he had planned for this stage of his life. But he
would do
anything
for her. Last night Suzanne had given him her most
prized possession—her freedom—and he would spend the rest of his life
protecting that gift, and the heart that gave it. Now he understood, he
thought, how knights had once felt as they put on their armor and readied
themselves to die for king and country, or for love.

He
sat and pulled her onto his lap. She put her arms around his neck and rested
her head on his shoulder. The wind slowed a little, allowing the warm beams of
sunlight to reach them in relief.

“Whatever
happens next,” he said, softly in her ear, “I’ll be there for you. Forever.”
Once spoken, the words felt inadequate to their purpose. He wished he had his
guitar so he could try again and again, until they were a song that she could
hear and understand.

But
maybe she understood already. “I know,” she whispered back, her face buried in
his neck.

Then
she looked at him, her blue eyes brimming with tears. “Last night I started to
panic again, like I have so many times before. I started analyzing and listing:
all the things that could go wrong, all the ways that we don’t go together. If
I had a friend in this situation, I’d probably tell her to get the heck out of
here. It’s just so…explosive.”

“Yes,
it is,” he agreed, remembering their throes of passion the day before, and how
angry she had made him before that.

Suzanne
sighed deeply and looked at the city below them, and the peaceful-looking river
beyond. “But when I got out of bed and came out here and looked down at the
world, I already felt too far away from you. I realized that I made my choice a
long time ago, and that not one person out there, anywhere, could make me feel
the way you do. You are,
we
are, the only choice. That’s why it never
worked with William. Not because there was anything wrong with him—”

Dylan
growled softly as a surge of jealousy hit him. But he said nothing.

“—but
because he wasn’t
you
. My heart knew it, and I’m pretty sure you did,
too. Now I finally understand it, for the first time ever. So,” she licked her
lips in that way that drove him crazy, “are you really sure you want to be
stuck with me? This is going to be hard. And you certainly have a lot of
choices, country star Dylan Burke.”

He
didn’t hesitate. “You’re the only woman I want to be stuck with, Scarlett. On a
balcony fifty stories up, or anywhere else.”

He
kissed her again, and would have done more, if they hadn’t been out on a windy
terrace and expecting company any minute. As it was, the bellman had to clear
his throat loudly a few minutes later before either of them even noticed he had
arrived.

They
emerged, startled, from a long kiss, embarrassed together this time. The
bellman nodded officiously as he held the door for them, as though this were an
ordinary part of his daily duties, politely ignoring that Dylan positioned
Suzanne directly in front of him as they stood, to hide how much he’d been
enjoying having her on his lap.

Dylan
held both of Suzanne’s hands to keep her close to him, and they crossed the
threshold together clumsily, laughing, fingers interlaced. The suite was warm
and inviting, full of possibilities. Whatever the next steps, the wind, the
world outside, and the past no longer mattered, at least for now.

They
were rescued.

Mid-January
2009

Suzanne
fidgeted with her pink cashmere sweater and brown suede skirt, assessing
herself critically in the mirror as she did. A little plumper than she had been
in the past, but still acceptable, she decided. Between the holidays and
Dylan’s passion for Southern barbecue, she’d put on a few pounds in the past
couple of months, and her body was threatening to burst out of the size six
wardrobe she’d been able to wear since high school.
Back to the gym next
week,
she promised herself.

“Dylan!”
she yelled in the direction of the bathroom, pulling on boots and her mother’s
pearls. “Let’s go, we’re late!”

“Okay,
okay, Scarlett,” he said. “You don’t seriously think they would start without
us, do you? Ow!”

He
grabbed his left foot, which was covered in a thin black sock and had just
rammed painfully against a large cardboard box. Suzanne gave him an apologetic
look. “Sorry. I’ll unpack that one today, promise.”

“You’ve
been saying that for a week,” he said. “And there are like thirty of them still
packed. I never realized how much stuff you had squeezed into that little
two-bedroom condo.”

“Some
of us don’t live on a tour bus with ten other guys,” she countered, with the
haughtiest air she could manage. “You’re like the richest person I know but
your belongings fit in a duffel bag.”

He
came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, pretending to strangle
her, and then softened at their reflection together in the mirror. “You’re just
lucky you’re so damn cute,” he muttered, burying his nose in her hair.

“Easy,
cowboy,” she said, turning to face him. “Marci will kill us if we’re late.”

“She
might kill
you
,” he said, pulling her closer. “But she
loves
me.
I’m a superstar.”

Suzanne
laughed and pushed him away, nearly causing him to lose his balance and fall
over the same box he’d just kicked. He gave her a stern look. “Unpack it tonight.
Seriously.”

A
couple of weeks before, just after the new year, they had closed on a
three-bedroom townhouse in Buckhead, a little farther from the city proper than
Suzanne’s condo had been. Because Suzanne was not yet drawing a salary for her
work with the foundation, and she insisted on contributing equally to the cost
of the house, they’d had a budget of exactly twice what she’d been able to get
for her condo in November. Dylan had protested this arrangement at first, as he
could have bought them any house she wanted. But then he realized that arguing
with Suzanne was fruitless. She had, however, graciously agreed to let him pay
the utilities and association fees until she was earning regular income.

And
of course, the mountain-sized diamond he’d slipped on her finger at Christmas
had been all his doing as well.

She
toyed with the ring in the passenger seat of Dylan’s truck, watching the soft
light of the afternoon play off the three-carat diamond with the same mixture
of awe and giddiness she’d been feeling ever since her trip to New York in
October. Though it was growing smaller each day, there was still a part of her
that kept expecting to wake from the dream.

They
pulled up to the little Presbyterian church Marci had attended since she was
little, and where it seemed she and Jake also intended to celebrate those
moments in their family life that called for religious rites. Now that she and
Dylan were engaged, Suzanne supposed they would need to start thinking about
things like that, too.
Engaged.
Her heart still palpitated at the word—mostly
in excitement, only partly in terror—and she squeezed Dylan’s hand on the seat
between them to calm herself.

He
smiled and gave her a kiss as he turned off the truck. “Come on, Scarlett.
Don’t want to make ourselves later than we are.”

When
they entered the crowded vestibule, Suzanne exchanged quick pecks on the cheek
with Rebecca, and Beth and Ray, while Dylan followed behind, shaking hands. She
waved at Chad and David, who were on the other side of the room talking to
Nicole and Ravi, Marci’s sister and brother-in-law. Nicole held their
six-month-old son on her hip. Their little girl Ayanna, now four, was hiding
behind Nicky, watching shyly as Beth and Ray’s children played with Jake’s
niece and nephews. Jake’s sister Leah broke off a conversation with Marci’s
parents to scold her twin boys about something.

The
friends, the parents, the kids. Everyone chattering and smiling, hugging and
wishing one another well. Suzanne marveled for a moment at how two people became
a family—both because of the people they brought into the world, and the people
they simply brought together. The happy chaos in the little church was all an
extension of Jake and Marci, who at one point in time had been just strangers
in the same freshman English class.

She
felt a tap on her shoulder as Jake approached from behind. “They’re in the
back,” he said, motioning Suzanne toward the sanctuary doors. “Dylan, let me
introduce you to my parents. My dad’s a huge fan, but he pretends it’s just my
mom who likes your music.”

With
that, Jake had confiscated her fiancée and sent Suzanne to find Marci and the
baby. Bonnie Theresa Stillwell was having her dedication today, and Suzanne’s job
was to stand in front of this little group and talk about Bonita Daniels, the
woman who had saved her life and given this baby girl her name. And also, to
stand up and promise to be Bonnie’s godmother. Both were heavy
responsibilities. She hoped she was up to the task.